Out of Tune
by Sekhem
Summary: Jacob Hood's past comes back to haunt him in a way neither he nor Rachel could have predicted. Rated T, for safety.


This is an extremely odd crossover – or possibly a fusion – of _Eleventh Hour_ and the movie _Dark City_. For those of you who know the TV series, but not the movie, _Dark City_ is a sci-fi film noir about a man in a city where it's always night, who's being chased by the police for a murder he may or may not have committee, and by a group known as the Strangers, who have the ability to change the world with a thought. Rufus Sewell, who played Jacob Hood in _Eleventh Hour_, also played John Murdoch, the main character in _Dark City_.

Which is what prompted this. Before you ask, this is probably going to be, and remain a one-shot. I mainly wrote it because I was curious to see if it could be done.

The characters and situations in both _Eleventh Hour_ and _Dark City_ belong to their respective creators. If they were mine, I'd be a much wealthier woman.

So, tell me. Is this any good, or not? Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, and flames will be used to toast marshmallows.

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Out of Tune

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_Men in black coats - men who weren't men - had been chasing him for hours through a city that never saw the sun. The only reason he gave himself over to them had been that Emma would have died otherwise. They took him to a place out of a nightmare and injected a chemical in between his eyes, and with the knowledge it imparted he learned how to make and unmake the universe..._

"Hey, Hood, you awake?"

John Murdoch - no, his name was Jacob Hood, he couldn't forget that - bolted awake to find himself in the front seat of Rachel's car. "Hmm? Sorry, I must have dozed off for a minute there."

She didn't quite smirk. "A minute?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Try half the day. You owe me, Hood."

He truly hadn't intended to sleep for that long, but he had needed the time to dig through his memories for the information they needed to break the case. He feigned an embarrassed smile. "You want me to take over driving?"

"What for?" She looked past him to the front of the dilapidated Victorian mansion. "We're here."

He smiled at her - genuinely this time - as they got out of the car. "I'll buy you dinner after we're done here, how's that?"

Rachel stopped and stared at him for a long time. "You know, Hood," she said, "we might just make a decent human being of you yet."

They went up the walk and knocked at the front door. After a moment, one of the men from his nightmare - _Mr. Book, his memory supplied_ - appeared. "Mr. Murdoch..." he - no, it - murmured, and drew a long dagger out of a hidden pocket. "How nice to see you again..."

_He's supposed to be dead_, Jacob thought wildly. _Why isn't he dead?_ "Rachel, get out of here," he snapped. He couldn't let the Strangers get hold of her, not like they did Emma.

"Dammit, Hood, how do you..." she started, but he physically shoved her out of the way.

"Just run!" he said, and Tuned for all he was worth.

Rachel fell in a sprawl in the middle of the flower bed. She started to pull her gun but stopped and watched in horror as Hood's eyes suddenly glowed silver. The air shivered and the man with the knife staggered back, then seemed to go on the defensive, though she couldn't tell how. The air shivered again, and Hood stumbled, but held his ground and wrestled the knife away.

He blasted the man back through the door, and, before the man in black could get up and come after Hood again, the door vanished.

Hood brushed the dust from his clothes and turned to offer her a hand up. "You okay?" he asked as if nothing had happened.

She took it without thinking about it and levered herself to her feet. "...I...what..." There were too many questions for her to ask, so she just settled on one. "...HOW...?"

Hood's shoulders sagged a little. "That's kind of a long story," he said, a bit sadly.

"I...I have time..." she said. It was better than a nervous breakdown.

"I'll tell you over dinner," he said.

"...He called you Murdoch..." she said. Funny the details the mind latched onto.

"That's my name," he said. "Or it was. John Murdoch."

She continued to stare at him, a little wild-eyed. "Who...what are you?"

His expression was as innocent as the day he was born. "I'm human, same as you." He shrugged. "Just...a little different."

-0-


End file.
